So why does a biography of Aaron Burr bring this to mind? Well, one of the primary sources for The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr is Burr’s letters, particularly to his daughter, Theodosia. Author H.W. Brands and, in turn, readers of his sketch of Aaron Burr and his life, should be thankful that Burr not only wrote plenty of letters, he kept copies.

Although Burr is the subject of numerous biographies, Brands’ use of the letters between Burr and Theo, named after her mother, allows a somewhat different perspective. As the title may suggest, the book seems to look more at Burr the man than the other categories in which he could be placed — politician, duelist, accused traitor. While Brand concisely covers the breadth of Burr’s life, it is clear that the father-daughter relationship was an extraordinary one. Burr was decades ahead of his time when it came to Theo. Throughout his life, he was devoted to seeing that she had an education equal to any man’s. Even after she was married and a mother, Burr would suggest matters for her to study and ask that she report back her thoughts and ideas upon doing so. His view of women was such that he described Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy, as “a work of genius.”

Despite his love for his daughter, Burr’s ambitions frequently took him away for extended periods of time. Yet those ambitions never produced the greatness Burr believed was his destiny. Burr’s political status in his native New York made him one of the key figures in the struggle between Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans, a dispute Brands summarizes rather handily. This would lead him to become Jefferson’s vice president in 1800, only for Jefferson to shut him out and for Burr left off the ticket when Jefferson sought re-election.

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr also recites the political atmosphere and style that led a longstanding enmity between Hamilton and Burr to culminate in the duel in which Hamilton was killed. While dueling was illegal, it was not uncommon. Although still vice president, Hamilton’s death stirred such a reaction that Burr had to flee to avoid criminal prosecution. Becoming essentially a political pariah, Burr ventures out to explore the U.S. west of the Allegheny Mountains, a venture that would result in Burr being tried for treason.

Brands fairly outlines the supposed scheme in which Burr engaged and its players. Essentially, he is accused of assembling an armed force — which he did — in an effort to have the western areas split from the United States, forming their own nation. In addition, he wanted to gain control of Louisiana and invade Mexico. Still, Burr was circumspect enough that the full extent of his plans and goals remain unclear. When an alleged co-conspirator sends Jefferson a coded letter supposedly written by Burr, the president proclaims Burr guilty of treason and directs federal authorities to arrest him. Burr is ultimately indicted by a grand jury for treason.

Abut a quarter of the slim volume deals with Burr’s 1807 trial. There’s good reason. As Brands note, not only does it present key issues about the only crime set out in the Constitution, the cast of characters is “illustrious.” Burr is the defendant yet actively participates in his defense. His defense counsel includes Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney General of the United States and former Secretary of State. And as this was still in the day where Supreme Court justices would “ride the circuit” to sit as trial judges, Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the trial. The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr frequently quotes from the trial transcript in presenting the factual and legal issues in a readable and understandable fashion. Burr is acquitted but his notoriety means an effort to return to the practice of law fails. As a result, he departs for Europe.

Letters continued between Burr and his daughter while he was in Europe. Yet believing their mail may be too easily read in the lengthy transit, they use false names and employ a cipher when referring to individuals. This correspondence, though, reveals that Europe may well be the nadir of Burr’s life. Far from family and friends, unable to build support for any of his plans, and then largely stranded due to the deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and Britain that would culminate in the War of 1812, Burr is essentially destitute. He then has to sneak back into the U.S. because there remains a warrant for him as a result of the Hamilton duel. Burr’s correspondence reflects his personal and political misery, although undoubtedly the situation may have been much worse than he let on to Theo.

Once back in the U.S., Burr eventually recedes from view and he yields no power, political or otherwise. Family tragedies would further affect him and Brands’ use of Burr’s letters throughout the book that established the strength and importance of those relationships helps bring home the effect of those tragedies on him. Thus, largely from beginning to end the portrait Brands creates is crafted with Burr’s own words.

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr certainly is not an in-depth look at the enigmatic Burr. But lengthier works tend to focus on details of what led to the duel with Hamilton and what Burr did in the west that led to the accusations of treason. As such, they give us more a picture of the political Burr than the personal one. This also makes the narrative quite readable and well-paced.

We are fortunate that individuals like Burr tended to keep copies of their letters, both sent and received. While we don’t know where where technology will take us, I can’t help but wonder whether the sources will exist in the future that make works like this possible.

Aaron Burr, January 1809, quoted in
H.W. Brands, The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr

Kafkaesque? In East Germany (the German Democratic Republic or “GDR”), it was entirely legal to file an application to leave the country and live elsewhere. Of course, if you applied to leave you were suspected of wanting to leave. Wanting to leave was the criminal offense of “Attempting to Flee the Republic.” Thus, a legal act made you a criminal.

Orwellian? The State Security Service (“Stasi”) had 97,000 employees in a country of 17 million. But the Stasi also had more than 173,000 informers. That meant there was one Stasi officer or informer for every 63 people. Some estimate that if all part-time informers were included, there was one informer for every 6.5 citizens. Or take the case of a highly popular East German rock band. When they sounded too political, the Stasi did not ban the band. Instead, they were told, “You no longer exist.” Not only were they not on the radio or covered in the press, the record company reprinted its catalog to omit the band.

Caught up in this perverse world were the East Germans themselves. And they are the real focus of Funder’s book, not only those who were spied upon but those who worked for Stasi. Funder, an Australian, displays her affection and admiration for the East Germans throughout her book. The book was sparked during her employment with a TV station in West Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She was puzzled why producers felt that the GDR was a subject best forgotten. She embarked on her own search to find out what it was like to live in what the German media called “the most perfected surveillance state of all time.”

Although written as a first person account of her exploration, Stasiland succeeds in allowing East Germans to tell their own story and bringing an entirely human face to both the spies and the spied upon. Stories of those affected by the Stasi’s pervasiveness, of course, abound but Funder does a fine job of finding stories among everyday people that go to the heart of life there. Surprisingly, when she placed a newspaper ad asking to speak with former Stasi officers and unofficial collaborators, she was flooded with responses. Why were there so many Stasi veterans? As a Stasi instructor told Funder, there was more and more work to do as time went on “because the definition of ‘enemy’ became wider and wider.” In fact, being investigated may have been enough alone to make you an enemy of the state.

The stories that arose in this type of atmosphere range from heartbreaking (parents separated from their ill child for years because of the Wall) to bizarre (the Stasi’s collection of “smell samples”). Like the reader, Funder is an outsider in this society, allowing readers to share her feelings and reactions as she learns of the big and small moments of life in the GDR. By recounting events and viewpoints from both sides, she also provides readers a more complete look at and better understanding of the GDR and its residents.

First published in English in 2003, Stasiland won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize of Non-Fiction in 2004. Yet the stories and the people behind them seem timeless and the book remains as worthy a read today as it did then.

Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

Streatfeild displays the unforeseen aspects of the event from the outset of his highly readable book, A History of the World Since 9/11: Disaster, Deception, and Destruction in the War on Terror. The first chapter tells the story of Mark Strovo, now sitting on death row in Texas for the October 4, 2001, murder of the operator of a convenience story and suspected of other such deaths. What does that have to do with 9/11? Well, Strovo targeted “sand niggers,” darker-skinned individuals who appeared to him to be Muslim. A convicted felon and admittedly racist before 9/11, Strovo told a television station after his arrest, “I did what every other American wanted to do but didn’t have the nerve.”

In telling Strovo’s story, Streatfeild examines some of the aspects of America and the post-9/11 rhetoric that contributed to the rage reflected in Strovo’s actions. Granted, Strovo is suspected of having committed a variety of retaliatory acts against prior to the murder and it takes someone predisposed to criminal violence to act out in such an extreme fashion. Still, there is little doubt about the strength of anti-Muslim emotions after 9/11 and some viewed Muslims as a threat. And if you’re wondering how Strovo so easily identified his targets, “Ay-rabs” to use his term, the answer is he didn’t. The man Strovo shot to death was Hindu and came to the U.S. from India in 1982. In fact, all the suspected victims and potential victims were Asian.

A History of the World Since 9/11 points out that 9/11 had unintended effects worldwide. For example, Streatfeild examines the adverse effect it had on the World Health Organization’s vaccination efforts seeking to eradicate polio worldwide. Not only did U.S. military action wholly disrupt efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan but it reinforced pre-existing suspicions in Africa and elsewhere that the vaccination program was actually an American plot against Muslims. Streatfeild, a British journalist, makes a crucial observation in the book. Whether those beliefs are true — just as whether the U.S. lied or killed innocent people — may well be irrelevant. “What does matter is that a huge percentage of of people in the Arab world believe them.”

Streatfeild’s irritation and frustration is evident throughout the book. Nowhere is it more evident than in the chapters dealing with what could be considered self-inflicted damage. Thus, A History of the World Since 9/11 explores the extraordinary rendition of a German citizen of Egyptian descent, a kidnapping, imprisonment and interrogation based entirely on mistaken identity. Streatfeild also takes the reader to the weapons depots the U.S. military failed to secure after the invasion of Iraq, the looting of which provided most of the explosives and other weapons that would be used against U.S. troops during the so-called insurgency.

Yet perhaps the most frustrating events featured in the book is the chapter examining the Bush Administration’s claims in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq that Iraq had been trying to purchase aluminum tubes to greatly expand a nuclear weapons program. It may be the most condemning account of the Bush Administration’s actions during that period I have ever read. Streatfeild leaves little doubt that not only did parts of the government and intelligence community take only one view of the facts, they ignored and even suppressed definitive contrary evidence. It makes clear that part of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s crucial speech to the United Nations was predicated on withheld information, if not affirmative misrepresentations.

There is no doubt Streatfeild views the reverberations of 9/11 as more disastrous than the attacks themselves. It’s equally clear that he condemns what nations and governments have done in the name of fighting terrorism. Yet even though A History of the World Since 9/11 does have a predisposition, it is an engrossing piece of reportage in which even those who may disagree with its conclusions can gain insight and knowledge about the impact of 9/11 on the history of the world to date.

Dominic Streatfeild, A History of the World Since 9/11